May 26, 2025 • 55 mins
In this episode of Naked Sports, Cari Champion chats with Jason Prenzo for a real, unfiltered talk about mental health—the highs, the lows. They get into the tough stuff: childhood trauma, the stigma that still surrounds mental health (especially for men), and why it’s so hard for some people to open up.
Jason opens up about his personal journey, sharing what it's really like to struggle with anxiety and the role self-awareness plays in healing. They talk about therapy, coping strategies, the pros and cons of medication and psychedelics, and how important it is to find a support system that actually gets it.
From unpacking identity struggles to tackling toxic masculinity and the pressure to “keep it together,” this episode is all about keeping the conversation around mental health honest, compassionate, and judgment-free. If you're looking for a deep, powerful, and relatable mental health podcast, you won’t want to miss this one.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Naked Sports, the podcast where we live at
the intersection of sports, politics, and culture. Our purpose reveal
the common threads that bind them all. So what's happening
in women's basketball right now is what we've been trying to.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Get to for almost thirty years.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
From the stadiums where athletes break barriers and set records.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Kaitlin Clark broke the all time single game assists record.
This is crazy for rookies to be doing.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Our discussions will uncover the vital connections between these realms
and the community we create. In each episode, we'll sit
down with athletes, political analysts, and culture critics because at
the core of it all, how we see one issue
shines the light on all others. Welcome to Naked Sports.
I'm your host, Carrie Champion. Hey everybody, welcome to you
(00:58):
another edition of Naked Sports. Carrie Champion here today for
the month of May. Many of you may already know
it is Mental Health Awareness month. You've seen all the messages,
and you know there are so many people with huge
platforms who offer their own personal story and then they
also share resources. And about a week and a half ago,
(01:20):
maybe two weeks ago, a really good friend of mine,
and when I say really good, he's been my friend.
He and his wife have been my friend for the
better part of two decades. And Jason is his name.
Who you will meet. Jason asked if he could come
on the podcast and talk about mental health awareness. One yes,
no questions asked, absolutely. Two he wanted to share his story.
(01:41):
And again I told you, I have been friends with
them for almost twenty years since the beginning of my career.
I've grown up with him in a lot of ways.
And today, my really good friend, Jason Prinzo, shares a
story with me that I've never ever heard before, and
it just goes to show that you can have someone
(02:03):
in your life and consider them a really good friend
or perhaps even a family member, and not know about
their personal struggles, which to me illustrates the very very
very very important issue of taking care of your mental
health and why this month is important for everyone. Everyone
(02:23):
could look good on the outside but be struggling on
the inside, and to me, that is what I saw
when my friends shared this story. So for those of
you who are going through tough times and you think
you just put your head down and figure it out, great,
that's fine. I don't know what the stress is in
your life. I don't know what family, friend, circumstances you're
living with. But sometimes life is hard. It just is.
(02:46):
I wish it wasn't. I wish I could say no,
but I think that if we're all honest with ourselves,
there is some point in your life eventually where you
get to the point and you say, God, this is hard.
Wish I had some help, or I wish I could
talk to someone about this, And hopefully, after hearing Jason's story,
those of you who are in that space feel inspired
(03:09):
to do so. Take care of your mental health like
you take care of everything else, you have to take
care of your mental health. Welcome to this edition of
Naked Sports. Jason Prinzo, Dear, dear, dear friend of mine.
I say that about everybody, but this is true. So
I like to tell everybody. I remove all of the mystery.
(03:31):
Everything is not BTS. It's for everyone to see. We
were having a conversation this past weekend. I went to
Chicago to hang out at you and my dear friend,
one of my best friends in the world, your wife,
and yes, we all saw Beyonce, but prior to me
even coming to Chicago to see Beyonce. You've reached out
and you said, you know, I want to I know
it's Mental Health Awareness Month, which is May, and you
(03:55):
wanted to come on the podcast. And I said, to
those who were listening to the podcast, I really appreciated
you for coming on here and sharing your story. Some
people look at mental health as something they can't talk about,
and you know there's a stigma associated with it. But
you've been nothing but solution oriented and you've always wanted
to share your story and I think that is powerful.
(04:17):
So if you don't mind, my friend, let me just
say thank you for doing that.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I mean, it's such an important conversation and not one
that everybody wants to dive into. It cannot be fun sometimes,
and you know, I don't want it to be a
heavy conversation. I just want it to be, you know,
a normal talk, because we need to end this stigma
and make it okay to talk about these things.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So you told me something that I just wasn't aware of.
You are, in terms of your credentials and qualified outside
of dealing with this all of your life. Tell people
what you have been able to do in your work
towards working being an advocate for mental health.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Well, I started back in twenty eighteen as an ambassador
for NAMI. I went there as far as as part
of a pitch that a doctor was doing on Kenneming treatments,
and once I started talking about my story, they had
asked me to become an ambassador. And I don't know
that I was aware of how important this work was
until they had me talking to the Chicago Police Department.
(05:14):
And as I was telling my story and my struggles
growing up with masculinity and how that's how I've had
to deal with that as an adult, I noticed that
these guys that are kind of alphas that you know,
much like athletes that are warriors that we think about
as being strong, were waiting in line to talk to
me afterwards, and they were emotional and saying that they
(05:35):
had never heard somebody say things they.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Could relate to, and it made them feel better because
there's a shared experience.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
And it just taught me that this needs to be
dug into even more and it became a very important
mission for me because we do need to end this stigma.
And I've dealt with this since I was five years old.
I was diagnosed with depression disorder at five. I had
a very traumatic childhood because of my father. There's a
line from my father to all of my mental illness,
(06:02):
and I needed to use it as a way to
not be a weapon against me anymore. I needed to
use this as a powerful tool in order to help people,
because it's the only way that I can use this
for good. And if I tell my story first, nobody
can hold it against me, and I need to own it.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
There's always that quote that I think of that we
spend most of our adulthood trying to escape our childhood,
and escape probably shouldn't be the word. It should be
trying to understand and process and heal from our childhood,
and healing is not a linear thing. But you say,
five years old, you were diagnosed with depression? How does
that happen to a five year old? How does a
(06:40):
doctor know that? Yet? These are the signs? What are
the symptoms if someone has a child right now? And
it probably is more easy to diagnose that when your
children are to use, you know, full sentences, subject and predicate.
But yeah, five years old, I would think that would
be difficult.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Well, we had a school assignment in kindergarten that we
had to draw a family portrait. And I drew my
little portrait and turned it in the next day. When
I showed up at school, they had me go to
a counselor's office and they asked me to describe my picture,
because you know, kindergarteners were not the best drawers, or
you know, we don't color very well, but they had
an idea of what was happening here. When I explained
that my family photo was my mother and I taking
(07:21):
my father out of a bar drunk, because that was
the perception that I had in my head, that set
off alarm bells and started some conversations about what was
happening at home and how I've been feeling. And I
was immediately put into therapy. And I did therapy from
five up until about sixth grade when I pulled myself
out of it, and it was extremely helpful, but it
(07:41):
was all that I knew. But because of some other
things going on in my life, my father was very violent,
violent in the way that he was firing shots at
our house at night. He was trying to run us
off the road with his car at different times. He
was just an extremely violent person, and you know you,
we were.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Always on the run. We moved.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I went to eight schools in twelve years. I lived
in fifteen different apartments or houses as a kids, so
I was constantly the new kid. And when you're the
new kid, and then you're the one that somebody's coming
in and opening the door in the classroom and asking
you to come out, all the other kids are.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Like, ooh, what's going on? Like they think you're in trouble.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
And it's hard at nine, ten, eleven years old to
explain to people that you're going to therapy. Especially you're
talking about the early eighties, late seventies, early eighties, when
this was first happening to me, it just wasn't something
that kids did, and it made me an outlier. Now
I felt like that already because of the constant moving around,
and I just couldn't wait to get out out of
(08:40):
that space and out of that situation. I just didn't
want to deal with it anymore, and I ignored it
far too long.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Well, so you said, from five years old to sixth grade,
you pulled yourself out of it, You stop doing therapy.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I stopped doing therapy, and I had changed schools so
often that it was easy to kind of get out
of when I changed schools after sixth grade. But I
there was a point where I just didn't believe it
was helping, and I made a very bad mistake at
twenty where I thought I could mentally beat it, where
if I just had a positive attitude, I could get away,
(09:13):
I could get past all these feelings of trauma and sadness.
And I did a lot of damage to myself because
I blew a decade, a decade plus of healing by
just trying to will myself to be better. And it's
funny because it falls right in line with statistically, there
is an eleven year gap from when people realize that
(09:33):
there was some sort of disorder or something happening and
finally going to get help, which is when you talk
about adulthood. It's a large part of our adult life.
And I did that exact same thing. I was that
same exact statistic, and it took me quite a while
to admit that I needed help and to go find it.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Why do you choose to say you did yourself a disservice?
Do you think it's your fault?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I don't think that it's my fault, but I was
in therapy. So I was in therapy at twenty and
I was put on prozac kind of when prozac first
came out, and I wasn't aware of what the this
was going to do to me, what the side effects
might be. And when I had a cousin that was murdered,
and when he was murdered, I remember thinking, boy, what
(10:14):
would Keith have done if he knew he.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Was going to pass on this day?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Like how would he have looked at the last year
with traffic and put him in a bad mood?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Would he have been upset that his girlfriend had called back?
Whatever it was?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
And I thought, if I could just live like I
know the end is coming and make the best out
of everything, I can beat this.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I can be in a better mental place. And it
wasn't working.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
My struggles with masculinity was coming out in very strange
ways as an adult.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And the way that I always try to put it is,
you know, my father.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Wasn't around, and as a young man, I was trying
to learn masculinity and my mother is amazing as she was,
just couldn't teach it. So you either you do one
of two things, at least I did. You either look
at your father as an example of what a man
of masculinity is or you make it up in your
head and neither one of them are great. Right, Like,
(11:06):
I didn't realize until I became an adult that my
version of conflict resolution was the exact thing that my
father was doing, where he was fighting people.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
All the time.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
And as much as I didn't want to be him,
there was this mix of well, this is what men do,
this is what masculinity is. And it was also the
example that I had of seeing my father deal with
conflict resolution.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Okay, so when you say you struggle with your masculinity,
what does that mean? And I want to tell everyone
the reason why I am saying this. Jason. I know Jason,
and as just a loving husband, always the life of
the party, always funny, I would not have said, until
you shared this with me, that you struggle with your
mental health. I wouldn't have I wouldn't have said that
(11:49):
was an issue for you. And I know that's really commonplace.
I know people who are struggling and trying to make
everybody else happy or often the people who are dealing
with the most. And so when you say you were
struggling with your masculinity. What does that mean to you?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Well, first of all, the what you're describing is what
we call smiling depression, and that's somebody that is holding
down a job. They're very responsible, they seem like the
life of the party, but they're struggling inside. We call
that smiling depression. It's not a medical diagnosis, but that's
kind of what it's called. And it's a signal to
all of us that everybody needs to be checked up on,
not just the people that we think are struggling, but
(12:28):
to get to the masculinity part.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
I had no examples growing up.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I was raised by a woman and I was around
women all the time, so it was always extremely comfortable
with women having conversations with women.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
I mean, I think you can tell that from our
time beginning.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
I know, I try that it's serious because we will
Jason will KEI key, he'll get into it. I'm like,
but here's the thing, though, even though you do enjoy
our company and I consider you, you know, for lack
of a better term, one of the owls, there's nothing
about you that fills less masculine. When you are with us,
(13:03):
you just you feel comfortable you feel at ease, you
don't feel it doesn't feel like it takes away from
your masculinity. I'm telling you how it's perceived.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
And that's probably because I have a much higher comfortability
with women.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah right, Like I know that space and I know
how to talk to them.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
I've gotten better with men, and I have very close friends,
were extremely close friends to do it. But growing up,
because I was bouncing around all the time, I didn't
have long term friends. My friends were lasting six and
eight months, and then.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I was starting.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I was getting new ones, and you're the new kid,
and you know, as young boys, we're not that welcoming
sometimes when there's a new kid. And so I'm fighting
to try to be one of the guys without ever
having an example of what being one of the guys is.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
So I never felt.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Like I stacked up to everybody else. And when I
became an adult, I didn't know how to live in
that space without being either hyper masculine or being myself.
I couldn't find that medium ground, and I always felt
a hyper masculine and because my relationships, and this is
(14:14):
going to hit you a little bit, because I've done
this with you before. One of the things that I
do because I'm so insecure in my relationships, because the
abandonment issues I have as a child are long term.
You know, my parents married and divorce each other twice
while I was alive, and then moving around. There's just
a whole lot there. But I'm so insecure in my
(14:35):
relationships that a few things happened one.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I test people all the time because I.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Think that I need them to prove their love for me,
because it's what I've always wanted. And I don't trust
people because I think everybody's leaving, and I leave at
the first line of any disruption.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
If I to.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
This day, if I text a friend of mine, I
don't hear back from them for a few days. I'm like,
it's over, We're not friends anymore. I'm going to pull
myself out of it because me making a decision to
leave the relationship is a lot easier to handle than
if somebody else does it, and from a romantic standpoint,
it would keep me in very toxic relationships because the
idea of losing somebody that you feel loves you hurts
(15:22):
more than the pain of being in a toxic relationship.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
And the way that I.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Always explain it is you're kind of always chasing the
next I love you. You're not getting what you need
emotionally from somebody, so you're always kind of doing more
for them because you just want to hear that I
love you. And my biggest downfall is the constant need
to feel loved and accepted and seen. And I realized
(15:46):
that I put off this air that I don't need it.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I need it.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
I struggle greatly with my insecurity and relationships. Yeah, and
there have been times with you that without you knowing,
and this is really unfair on my part, but I
can't something I'm working on where I may out of
the blue mentioned something to you that I have going
on and I'm excited about it, And then I won't
talk to you for a while because I want to
wait and see if you hit me back to check
(16:10):
up on it. I'm sorry if you don't, and if no, no, no, no,
nobody's done anything wrong here.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
This is my own thing.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
And if I don't hear from somebody, it's almost a
relief because it's confirmation of what I've already believed.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
What do you mean you believe? You believe?
Speaker 3 (16:29):
I believe that the relationship has been fragile and surfaced
from the beginning, and that the friendship that I felt
wasn't real because the more that I want it than
they were giving.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
What attachment style is that you know you hear about different?
Is that it is there? What do you how would
that be diagnosed if when you describe that?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Is that all the people pleaser?
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, I'm a pleaser, which is a lot of pressure
because I feel like my value in friendships is making
other people feel good. That that's the only thing that
I bring to the table that I have to be
a person I see and so what happens and this
happens in my friendships, right like I go overboard with
my friendships of being hyper supportive, hyper diligent because I'm
(17:15):
trying to hang on to it. And it took me
a long time to realize that the people in my
life that I love aren't going to be overboard back
with me because they don't have those same issues of abandonment,
they don't have those same fears that I have, so
they don't need to do more. They're doing what everybody
else does. And I had to stop expecting that back
(17:36):
from people because their.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Insecurities aren't mine. Yeah, and they don't.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
They're not doing anything wrong by just being a very normal,
supportive friend.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
They don't have to go overboard to prove themselves to me.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Well, there are instances I will say this or I
you've been my friend for a very long time and
life gets busy. Anybody who is my friend knows sometimes
I forget important things and I and it happens all
the time. I just in my mind. I think, first off,
if you love me, you'll understand. You could charge it
to my head and not my mind. You know what
(18:09):
I mean. Doesn't mean I don't. I don't. I don't
have to. It doesn't have to be transactional for me.
We could go months without talking and I still love
your blame and I'll catch you up on all the
things of life. But when you have been what you
have been describing doesn't necessarily mean that someone has a
mental illness, but or they should check on their mental health.
(18:29):
What you describe. I sometimes think they're just the ups
and downs, just in terms of friendships, of how friendships work.
If someone's listening right now and they and they have
been struggling maybe with that area or other areas, what
are the feelings that that's especially for men. What are
the feelings that arise that that say, you know what,
(18:51):
I might need to talk to somebody, or i might
be struggling and I'm not being honest about it.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I think men us, as men, we suffer with We
suffer from a lack of self awareness.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
We are taught.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Things as young boys of big boys don't cry tough enough.
We're never taught how to deal with our emotions, how
to work through our emotions, how to have conflict resolution.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
We don't learn any of these things.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Nobody teaches us this, and so when we become adults,
we feel like showing anybody any of these things makes
us weak, so we don't talk about it at all. Right,
we don't talk about it with our friends. We hold
all of.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
That stuff in.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
And there's an unfortunate responsibility that we feel as men,
whether it's real or not, that we have to take
care of everything, that it is our job to keep
everybody safe in the house, to make sure the bills
are paid, to make sure that everybody else is good
before we can take care of ourselves.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And that's actually backwards.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
We need to take care of ourselves before we take
care of anybody else. And I think men we're just
so used to this pressure that we don't realize what
we're feeling, that we don't realize that some of these
things that are happening are having an effect on us.
And the biggest one for me is being aware of
my body. My body will tell me when there's stress
(20:11):
happening and when something's coming on quicker than when my
mind will tell me. I get stressed to my shoulders,
my shoulders tightened up, I'll get sick to my stomach.
One that's happened lately because I've been under a lot
of stress, is tingling in my arms and fingers, which
can feel like a sign.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Of a heart attack. Yeah, that's the first was really
scary at first.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Yeah, it wasn't until I went to the doctor and
we talked about it that it's a stress response. Some
people will have twitching in their eyes. These are all
indications that there is something going on psychologically that we
are stressing about or is bothering us. And that's kind
of when we need to start taking some action and
just paying attention to how we're feeling. If you're noticing
that you or somebody is spending in an order amount
(20:55):
of time in the house or in bed. That's a
huge sign that there's something going on. Pulling away from
friends another huge sign. When we're in this bad place,
we isolate. You know, there's a reason why we lay
in bed all the time because the idea of getting
up out of bed just feels monstrous. It feels like
(21:17):
the biggest thing we're going to do all day is
just get out of bed. But it works backwards because
we're in this place where we don't feel well, we
don't want to do life, and so we hole up
in bed. But doing that just makes every day feel
like it's one hundred hours long and you feel like
you're just never coming out of this space. And the
(21:38):
ridiculousness that we feel.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Is very very real to us. So when a friend.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Tells you what they're feeling and why they're feeling this way,
one of the worst things anybody can say is what
do you have to be sad.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
About or think about the bright side?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
One of the most irritating ones is, well, if you
think that's bad, this yeah, And all that is going
to do is make any of us stop talking. Because
it's hard enough to try to fight through these feelings
without having.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
To fight with you to accept what we're feeling.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Right, do you think because I could imagine someone friends
saying that I am in therapy, I've been therapized enough
to know not to say that. But for those who
don't have therapy and they don't have the words, they
think they're consoling you.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yes, is there a.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Space for you to say, I know you're trying to
console me. That's not going to help though in this moment.
Is there a space for you to understand why they
don't understand those aren't the words.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Yes, But it's hard in that moment, okay, right, because
you're already in this place where you're fighting, Right, you're
in fight or flight mode and you're fighting to get
out of this. You're fighting to get into a better headspace.
We want to be happy, and when somebody is saying
those things to you, even though we know it's going
to be helpful, there's a lot of anger that's built
(23:03):
up because we feel alone in that moment and the
people that we're leaning on don't understand well in that moment.
To your point, we do need to be able to
take a step back and say, hey, look, I know
you're trying to help. Yeah, you're making me feel more isolated.
All I need from you is to say, I'm sure
that's really hard. What can I do to help? Yeah,
(23:24):
I can't imagine what that feels like. Just make us
feel as if you understand and can be compassionate in
some way.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
We're going to take a quick break because we have
to pay some bills. We'll be right back in just
a few moments. I think having this conversation with you
is so helpful because I tend to only share with
people i'm close with. But I'll share you know. I'm
(23:56):
struggling with my relationship with my mother, and I'll say this.
I'll say, I'm going to tell you something, but I
need you to understand. I don't want you to solve
this problem. I definitely don't want you to take her side.
I want you to hear me as a person and
separate yourself from this. Just hear what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yes, and.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
My friends without fail, yourself included. Never let me down.
People who don't really know me and I share too
soon that will happen. So I know it's really important
to create a safe space to share these feelings. And
when we talk about how sad we are. Some people
(24:36):
don't want to use the depression word, but studies show
that everybody's what's the percentage of people who experience some
sort of depression throughout their lifetime? I would ressume everyone.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
It's I mean pretty much every it's like seventy or
eighty percent, will experience some sort of mental health issue
at some point in their life. I mean for athletes,
they say that thirty five percent of elite athletes struggle
with their mental health. And we've had more and more
people come out and talk about that. You know, obviously,
Smoke Biles, Kevin Love, Jake Laser's written a book about
his struggles. So it does affect pretty much everybody at
(25:10):
some point. Those of us that have clinically either have
anxiety depression. Those things are constant. And there's a little
bit of a misconception when it comes to anxiety. And
I realize now, I wasn't diagnosed with anxiety until I
was married, and I realized.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
That saying is that my friend Angie brought on anxiety.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
No, I'm saying that your friend Angie was the one
that pushed me to go to the doctor.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
And I love it. Okay, I love it because I
was going to fight you with me five seconds.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
So honeymoon because of my anxiety.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
You know, work is a major stress for me, and
I have a lot of anxiety and a huge amount
of imposter syndrome, and that's something that I work on
all the time. So when we were on our honeymoon,
we were in Vegas and Saturday Sunday great, We're gambling,
We're going to dinners, We're having fun. When Monday came
and I was normally working, my brain went to work
(26:03):
mode and we were going to the pool. We had
a command and rent it by the pool, and my
brain was lying to me saying that if I don't
work today and the company has a bad day, it's
gonna be my fault and I'm gonna get fired. If
I don't work and they have a good day, it's
going to be proof that I'm not necessary and I'm
going to be fired. So I told Angie, I'm just
(26:25):
gonna send a couple of emails and that turned into
six hours and we were at the airport and I
was having a breakdown and she grabbed me by the
hands and she said, you have anxiety and I need
you to go get help. And I said, I don't.
I have a stressful job, and if we're going to
be married, I need you to understand the stress that
I'm under and the pressure of my job. And she
grabbed tighter and she said, you have anxiety. It's not
(26:49):
just affecting you, but it's affecting me. And that crushed
me because it's the person.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I love the most. And I realized I had ruined
our honeymoon.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
So I'm not ruined the honey moan, just ask her no, no.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
But you know, the anxiety is kind of what leads
to a lot of these feelings, right, because we when
we're struggling with anxiety, especially for me, is I can
only think of worst case scenario.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, And a lot.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Of times I spent my childhood thinking that that was preparation,
that I was just preparing for the worst in case
that happened. But I realized now that what I was
thinking was that only the worst was going to happen,
that there was no other option but the worst thing.
And you spend months if you got an event coming up.
You know, if I have a big speech coming, I'm
(27:41):
stressing for an entire month about what am I going
to do when this is awful?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
What am I going to do? What is CARRY going
to say to me when I'm terrible?
Speaker 3 (27:49):
On her podcast today, Those things are constantly going through
my head and it's the simplest term. Is the former brainwashing.
We are self brainwashing. There's a thing called the illusion
to truth effect, and it's something that's used by manipulators,
cult leaders, politicians, and it's repeatedly hearing false information as truth.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
And when you hear.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Things over and over and over, you wind up believing them.
So when we're telling ourselves that these things are going
to fail, or we're not worthy of love, or we're
not worthy of friendship, you can't help but believe it right,
like it's the only thing that we're hearing.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Well, when you say you're hearing that, who's telling you
that you?
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (28:35):
And that is a form of the mental health issue
that you've been talking about, because you constantly have a
track saying that you're not worthy enough.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yes, I'm not good enough, I'm not attractive enough, I'm
not smart enough. I mean because of moving around in
school and I have some ADHD issues. I was in
learning disability classes, so I knew I wasn't dumb, but
this is, you know, the way that my life is
playing out because I was so far behind, and so
(29:05):
there's this constant feeling as kids of just not being
good enough. And it's a shame that something that can
happen to us for ten or fifteen of our initial
years can still play out thirty forty years later, even
though there's there's zero indication that any of that is
true over the last thirty years of my life.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
But I still feel it every day.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Fascinating how the brain works. I think of how our
brains aren't even fully developed when we start to have
these these ideas and these thoughts in our minds. Yeah,
because you know they say your brain doesn't fully develop
until your mid to late twenties. My thought process then,
is why do we hold on to all the negatives?
The same with social media? You remember the negative comments
(29:48):
before you remember the positive comments. There is something about
the way we need to rewire our brain. The science
behind mine. You have shared and I know when I
went to your Instagram page, your mental health Instagram page
is Jason Prinzo, mhm as and Mary h as in
Health Right Mental Health, m as in mental age as
(30:09):
in health.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
How about that I.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Heard you talk about you know some solutions we've talked about.
What are some of the things that you know can
trigger mental health issues, whether it be stress, how you
feel about yourself, how does it show itself in the body.
For you, it's been tingling, it could be your shoulders tight, stiffen.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
I had something strains start happening to me a couple
of years ago, and I'm just curious if anybody else
is dealt with.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
The same thing.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
So out of the blue, I started getting this pins
and needles feeling in my hands and especially my fingers.
So I went to the doctor to find out if
there was any problems with my heart, and it turns
out that this pins and needles feeling.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Is a stress response.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Now I wasn't surprised because I tend to run pretty
high with anxiety and stress as it is. But I
think what was surprising to me was that it was
taking itself in this form because normally I get it
in my stoma. I feel at my back and shoulders,
and that's my indication that there is some sort of
stress for something going on.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
That I need to take care of. So I'm just
curious what's an indication for you?
Speaker 3 (31:10):
What is the signal that you need to get ahead
of some sort of stress, anxiety or mental health issue.
And just remember, no matter what you're going through, you
are not alone.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Alone. For me, I hold my breath, Yes, I mean
the same thing.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
I hold my breath when I I'm just feeling intense,
and then I'm like, wait, why am I holding my breath?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
And then I and You're like, am I sick because
I'm out of breath? Am I? Am I that far
out of shape?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Exactly? Yeah, No, I'm just holding me.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
From walking up the steps. And it's no, it's just stress.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
You're just holding game spots. Can you said a couple
of things that are mechanisms in which you can cope,
which are just some natural mechanisms. Being kind lowers your
blood pressure. Can you tell us other ways where you
can there these these are natural mechanisms before we dive
into the to the drugs of it all.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yes, And I have a lot to say about therapy
as well. Yeah, but I think there are a lot
of things we can do. Socializing might be the most
important thing in order to manage our mental health. When
we're out with our friends, we're socialized and we feel
part of a group, we feel accepted, and there's bonding
moments that we have in there that just make us
feel a lot better. And you know, we don't necessarily
(32:19):
do this as much in big groups, but when we're
one on one, and you talked about this about sharing
with friends, shared experience is so helpful because it makes
you feel like you're not alone. And when you're able
to get some of those things out and somebody else
is telling you their experience as well, there's something soothing
about it that's helpful.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
So socializing is huge.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Just getting out in nature at all has amazing effects
of being calming for our brain. When I noticed that
I'm starting to get anxiety about something coming up. There
are a few things that I like to do. Breathing
exercises are always great. I like to do box breathing, when,
if you're not familiar with it, you hold your breath
for seven seconds, you breathe in for seven, blow out
(33:02):
for hold for seven, and blow out for seven. I
can't do typical deep breathing because my brain will still
wander and stress, So the box breathing with the cadence
is enough of the.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Distraction to start to lower my blood.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Pressure and bring me back to a better place because
it's all I can concentrate on. Lavender oil is great
to have around. Lavender oil has very calming and sedative effects.
I keep lavender oil with me and I'll put it
on my wrist or my hands and just breathe it
in for a while.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Physical exertion is great.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
There are a lot of times I work in a
shared office space, so I'll go into one of the
private rooms and do pushups for jumping jacks, and there's
a dopamine release with that that gets you into a
better place. That's always really great. Anything creative. As you know,
I started painting about seven years ago.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
That has been there's a little crash there that.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Has been so extremely helpful for me, especially with my anxiety.
And that's that's why you're seeing.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
A lot of more adult coloring books.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
You're seeing more of like the paint and wine things,
because when you're working on something creative. When I'm painting,
I can't think about anything but what I'm working on
in that moment, and when you're done, there's a sense
of accomplishment. At the end of the day, you get
to see your progress. I could paint for eight hours
and not stop. I have to set alarms and remind
(34:28):
me to go eat, to go spend time with my
wife because I'm so calm and relaxed in that moment
that I don't want it to stop. Those are all
incredible things that we can do. And then there's a
couple of sneaky ones. One that I love is wearing
clothes that I feel great in. Like, I think we
all have those outfits that were, like, and I look
(34:50):
great in this, right.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
We have confidence, we feel good.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
If I've had a few bad days, I'll find a
thing that makes me feel the best. I don't care
if it's overdressed or not, and that on and go
towards you feel better.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah that's so smart. I forgot about that.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
I'll do that.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I'll do that when I'm feeling away. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Okay, And I'm a huge proponent of therapy. Therapy has
been great to me. I tell people all the time
that I don't spend my time in therapy trying to
figure out why I think the way that I do.
I have an understanding of that. I spend my time
in therapy figuring out how do I live with the
(35:28):
results of this? How do I blaze new trails in
my minds that I go to better places instead of
the negative space. And the thing that I explain to people,
and this is especially for men, because we just have
a tough time wrapping our head around going to therapy
and talking to somebody is.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Most of us have worked out with trainers.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Most of us have played sports as a kid, head coaches,
maybe you've had a tutor. A therapist is nothing but
a trainer for your brain right like it is. It
is just there to help you become stronger. No different
than working out at the gym, No different than having
a tutor, a mentor whatever it is. We constantly eat
(36:12):
diets to fight off heart disease, diabetes. We work out
in order to have a long life, but we don't
do anything about our mental health until there's an issue.
We don't work on that ahead of time to stay
ahead of it. We wait until the car breaks down
to go and get an oil change. And that's something
(36:32):
that we all need to be aware of. And we
have to maintain our mental health and make plans like Look,
I have something I call my happy list and these
are all things that give me a little bit of joy.
And they could be big things like traveling, it can
be as small as going to get coffee. I love
walking to a coffee shop and hearing the sound of
the grind. All of that is great for me. And
(36:54):
I try to do one thing on my happy list
every day. It could be ten minutes. I might listen
to music for twenty minutes, but I have to work
that in every single day like it's a job, because
those are the things that keep me set mentally and
reset me mentally.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
And if I go three, four or five.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Days without doing some of these things, then my mind
starts going to a bad place.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Sure, Sure, we're going to take a quick break because
we have to pay some bills. We'll be right back
in just a few moments. You know, it's interesting for
me when I'm in a space where I'm not happy.
(37:36):
If I start cleaning my house, Yes, I feel so good.
Like I start, I'm asking people come over and like
your house is so immagulate, I'm like, no, it makes
me feel better to unpack my clothes as soon as
I travel, to do some laundry, to you know, tighten
up tight hear. It's a physical. It's all this anxious
energy that wants to be released. That's what I hear
(37:56):
you saying. And then there's also this anxious mind that
needs to be and that's why, Yes, when people say
things like, oh, I go outside and I walk. I'm
living in New York now. I walk every week in
my favorite neighborhood because it's a neighborhood. It's not loud,
it's not busy. But when I walk and I look around,
all of this feels soft to me. Everything The lens
(38:18):
is so much more softer and not as harsh, and
there is bright lighting, and there is better air, all
things that I'm just fitting naturally. And these are all
really simple techniques. We live in a world now where
a lot of people want to throw drugs at it,
and you have I And I'm just gonna be candid.
When I heard you did Academy and I was like, wait, what, Like,
(38:39):
I know Matthew the guy from the Friends died off
of and I'm like, that's dangerous. How do you How
do you balance using you know, drugs to help psychedelics
for many people to help and not become addicted when
there's something intrinsically connected with people who have been health
(39:00):
problems in addiction, like there's some kind of sure because
you want to medicate the pain, I could see why
it be so addictive, right.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
So a couple of things I've done, all different types
of medications. Some of them have been really effective, some
of them have it. One of the problems with medications
in pill form when it comes to mental health is
there's a ramp up phase, right, Like, it doesn't really
start taking effect for four to six weeks that you'll
start to feel the positive effects from it, but for
(39:29):
those four to six weeks, it can ramp up the
negative feelings. So when you're trying to find the right medication,
it can be this cycle of up and down because
you're starting something new and it ramps up all the
anxiety and depression and you're waiting for it to fix
and it doesn't, so then you've got to try a
new one and that ramps up.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Where with a lot of the psychedelics.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
The effects of it are pretty immediate. What happened with
me with ketamine was and is part of my story
of becoming an advocate. In twenty eighteen, I was laying
on the couch and I was in a really bad space,
and I was going to my Facebook page and I thought, boy,
this looks amazing. I got a great life, and you know,
people are getting to see my Sports Center highlights every
(40:09):
day and it looks like I'm just you know, having
a ball, but I'm struggling every day. So I made
a post about it, and I was shocked at how
many people responded. A lot of dms from people just
wanted to talk about stuff. And a friend of mine
who is antestesiologist, had just opened a clinic and he
was doing kenemine treatments and he said to me, he goes,
(40:29):
I didn't know that you were struggling. Why don't you
come and try ketamine? And I completely refuse. I was like, this,
this sounds silly.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
I'm scary.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
It sounds scary. Yeah, I'm not a drug user. It's
not something I'm interested in.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
But he kept asking and I kept doing the research,
and what I learned was that ketamine was originally used
during the Vietnam War when they were doing surgeries in
the field, and what they realized was that people were
coming out mentally feeling better than they were prior. And
the University of Michigann started doing studies on the effects
of ketymine. So essentially what happens in kenemine treatments. And
(41:06):
I've done it where it's an IV and you go
in and it takes about forty five minutes.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
You have a small trip like you don't.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
It's such a micro dose that it's not something that
you feel the need to become addicted to. I'm sure
there's some addictive results from people that are doing this,
but it's it's very far and few between, and the
effects can be immediate when you first do it. You
got to do it like six sessions in the first
two weeks, and then those effects, the positive effects can
(41:37):
last up to a month to six weeks.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
So you're not constantly doing these treatments.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Oh okay, but are you are you administering? Are you
going to know there's a doctor.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
I would only do it with a doctor administer.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
You can only do it with the doctor.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yeh.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
You can't run around and pop some ketamine pills. You
have to have a doctor administry. So that is the
way to at least one or two safeguards to stop
it from happening. But I'm sure it's obvious. See out
there illegally, but you're saying right you wanted to try
it under a doctor's care.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
It does correct and the gentleman from friends that passed
away from it, he had like six times the amount
in his body that you would get from a treatment.
And when you get a treatment, it only lasts in
your body for up to like it's got a fifty
percent rate for the next two days. He hadn't had
a treatment for a week and a half. That wasn't
(42:27):
in a system anymore. And I realized that the headlines
make it look like kenemine treatments are killing people, and
it's that's just not the case. He was overloaded with kenemede.
He was doing it as a recreational drum.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
What made you decide to use kenemine?
Speaker 3 (42:43):
I felt like I was running out of options. I
changed medications so many times and it had me in
such a bad place that I was desperate. And when
I did the research, I gave it a try, and honestly,
it was really helpful. I will tell you this and
I'll get a little emotional. I became suicidal for the
first time, even though I had struggled with depression and
(43:06):
anxiety my whole life. I had never thought about suicide
until I had a friend died by suicide when I
was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
And.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
I'm not lying when I tell you that the idea
of suicide crossed my mind every single day for the
next thirty years, and it wasn't something that I was planning.
I kept it as an option that if things got
bad enough, I always had this out. And in twenty twenty,
I started to normalize it. We had all the turmoil politically,
(43:35):
we had protests happening everywhere. I'm looking around and seeing
how my friends like you are being affected by some
of the things that are happening, and it's tearing at me,
and I feel like I'm arguing with family, and I
just couldn't take it anymore. And I realized that I
normalized it so much that I knew how I was
going to do it, I knew where I was going
(43:55):
to do it, and I knew I was going to
do it in a way that nobody I love would
find me. So I didn't want them to have that trauma.
And one of the hardest things that I ever did,
and one of the best things I ever did, was
I was aware enough to go to my wife and
say life is too hard for me and I'm having
(44:17):
really bad thoughts, and we didn't be in the league.
Got me some help, and that help was a ketemine treatment,
and ketymine in one treatment can help relieve those thoughts
of suicide. And it saved my life. I mean it
saved my life. And what I did from there, I
(44:38):
went checked into an outpatient facility. I did two weeks
of intensive group and one on one therapy and I
needed it. And the things that I learned there have
been life saving and life changing. A lot of the
things that I talk about as far as tools to help,
are all things that I learned over those two weeks.
And when I did it, I was very front. I
(45:00):
told all the people that I work with, anybody I
do business with, Hey, this is what's happening, and this
is what I'm doing, because I wanted to start letting
people know that this is okay. If I had cancer,
if I had diabetes, if I had anything else that
required me to get treatment in a facility, I wouldn't
be embarrassed about it. And I shouldn't be embarrassed about this,
(45:21):
and I.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Refuse to be.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
I love your friend, that's so cool. You to share
that story. Now we're all crying.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
It's okay.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
I think that it's very important to be as honest
and as vulnerable as you are. This this thing called
life isn't easy. We need more than just one month
to highlight why mental health is so important. And I
don't want to say it's popular or in vogue, but
I am always so encouraged when I see athletes to
(45:53):
your point, or celebrities or whomever, people with the platform.
And I've watched you talk about this and bits and pieces.
I watched one of your very first corporate speeches that
you gave, and I immediately thought, oh, this is his assignment,
he is, this is what he has been called to do.
(46:14):
You are creative in general, but this, this is will
be your legacy and how you will change people's lives
by sharing your story. You and then also admittedly still struggling,
still trying to figure.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Out, still struggle. Look, I'm never going to beat it, right,
It's not going to go away. I have to learn
how to manage it and live with it and not
have it affect the people around me. You know, we
talk about athletes and it's come out a lot lately.
I was really shocked at how many of my athlete friends, yeah,
would come to me one on one and pull me
(46:48):
aside and go I didn't know. Here's what I'm feeling.
I've never told anybody, and their struggles are a lot different, right,
Like I've seen friends of mine struggle during retirement because
that transition is hard. Retirement to everyday life is really difficult.
And I don't think that a lot of us, as
(47:09):
fans or general public realize these guys are still in
their thirties and most of the times they haven't made
the decision to retire. Somebody made that for them, and
something that they've been doing their entire life since they
were seven or eight years old is suddenly being taken
away at a time when they're still young and healthy.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
There's a huge identity crisis there.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
And for those people that make up the majority of
professional athletes that don't make retirement money, you're looking at
being thirty four to thirty five years old and trying
to figure out what's next because you have to work
and you've never had a job, you've never made a
resume before, and everybody else is far along and developing
(47:49):
their careers and you're figuring out what's next.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
That can be a huge blow to people mentally.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
It's also to anybody in a space where you have
to find out who you are, Like I, even you
think about that, what about when someone is transitioning into
a new career such as yourself, or trying to redevelop
the career that well, such as myself, or that I
was going.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
To bring that up, or even you left a big
you know, a big company, yeah, brand, Yeah, and you
did it on your own terms.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
And and look, I've told you.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
When you first told me you were going to do it,
I was so proud of you, and you've done amazing
since then. But I imagine there had to be a.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
A It's just identity is attached to what you do.
And that happened to me when I first I was
a local news reporter, and I and then I wasn't
a local news reporter. I was just trying to figure
out when can I get my next local job? And
I didn't, but I was always I would lead with
I'm a reporter, and so much of our work is
attached to what we do, and so I see it.
(48:51):
I see it in everybody's world. I see it when
a mother's children leave and she's an empty nester. Or
when a woman decided to leave her husband and she's
happy that she did it, but she has to find
a whole new life, or vice versa, when a man
leaves his family or his wife, whomever. When you legal
relationship and you've been so intricately connected to this being,
(49:12):
this person, this entity, it happens none of us, none
of us are excluded from that. So and so that's
when for me, I think therapy is important to express
how you feel. Not it's easy and it can happen.
I even think of people when they are quote unquote
at the highlight of their career and they're showing their
(49:33):
sports and her clips of what they're doing, and how
they are still very very much struggling, struggling with who
likes me, who really wants to be my friend, who's
using me? How do I adjust to this new world
where I don't know who to trust? And that's why
it's so to me very important to one keep a community.
(49:54):
When you start talking about your friends and who you
can share with, I think that's to me, that's the
only thing that saves us in any of these circumstances.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Totally.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
And look, there are a couple of things that I
want to talk about that you just pointed out. You know,
one as parents, when you talk about, you know, raising children.
A mistake that I think a lot of parents make
is they try to fix themselves to their children. And
that's what my mother did with me, where she was
trying to prepare me to not make the same mistakes
(50:23):
she did because they were a problem for her, but
they weren't a problem for me. Right, So, at seven,
eight nine years old, my mother was trying to teach
me how to be an adult. Where I knew when
bills weren't getting paid, I knew when we might get evicted,
I knew when loans didn't go through, and she was
trying to teach me responsibility and to how to understand
how to be an adult. But at that young age,
(50:44):
all it did was cause me to have more fear
of what was happening. I had already had fear of
what my father was going to be doing physically to us.
Now I have this fear that I have to deal
with and I have to think about these things with
my mother, and you know that she was just trying
to fix herself, right, because she didn't have those tools
(51:05):
when she had.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
First gotten married. She went to make sure that I
had them.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
But you know it, she had the best intentions, it
just caused a lot of anxiety. And that's that's difficult,
right for women. You guys have so much pressure, and
it's different than what men feel. You know, you're told
her you can't have it all right, that if you work,
you're just a working woman and that's all you are,
(51:29):
anty all of these other things if you're having a
bad day. And I even hate using the word emotional
because when you attach emotional to women, it has a
different meaning than when you attach it for men. And
you know, if you're upset, we oh, it's just they're
just being emotional, or you know, like, oh, you can't
(51:50):
say anything, And as guys, we do the exact opposite.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
We don't say anything.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
And it's really unfair. And I've noticed a lot lately
when I speak out about men's mental health, because that's
the one that I can relate to the most, I
get a lot of women coming back saying, well, what
about this and what about this? And it goes into
what I was saying about politics to you the other day.
Mental health is in the team sport. Nope, right, Like,
both things can be true, and nobody is saying that
(52:17):
all men are making women feel this way and all
women are making men feel this way.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
What we need to do is be able.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
To have a conversation and say, here are the things
that I'm feeling. And even though I may feel as
a man that it's my responsibility to take care of everything,
I'm not saying that it is.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
I'm saying that's the pressure that I feel.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Right Like, my wife and I have taken turns being breadwinners,
and my wife has out earned me a lot of times.
By far, it has never been an issue to me.
But even in those times, I felt like it was
my responsibility to make sure that all the bills were paid,
that I had everything handled. Even though my wife is
(52:57):
very supportive can handle a lot of those things. It's
just the pressure that I feel, and I'm sure she
feels pressure of what is a great wife. I know
she felt a lot of pressure of that she wasn't
the right kind of mother, that she wasn't the arts
and crafts mother. She was a working nurse, so she
felt like she was failing there. And that's really unfair.
So there's all these societal pressures and gender pass that
(53:18):
we have and.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
It's not a team sport. We can come together and talk.
Speaker 3 (53:22):
About these things and what our differences are and help
each other and it's not me against you. It's not
men against women. So when you hear certain genders talking
about their struggles, it's not saying that they have it
worse or we have it worse.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
We're all in this together and we're all just trying
to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
I love it. You posted something on your mental health
page that said, you know, it was about normal and
I'll end with this like normal is subjective. There is
no normal anything what you normally do, there's no And
I think the more that we have these conversations and
we're more honest about where we are in our normal
space of life, yes, then people will start to understand. Yeah,
(54:06):
I appreciate you so much. What other resources would you
like to provide you have? Jason Prinzo MH can follow
you on Instagram? Where else can people find you? Can
follow me on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
My website is Jasonprinzo dot com and on there if
you're searching for help, I have a page that has
a list of different resources in order to find therapists,
in order to find it affordable therapists, in order to
find help for substance abuse, for any sort of physical abuse.
That's all on there if you go to my page,
because it's there are a lot of resources, but a
(54:37):
lot of us don't know where to go to get them,
and so I've got them all listed on my page.
And I would encourage anybody if you're struggling and you
need help, there are ways to find it. You can
go directly to my page and find any sort of
resources you need.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
Thank you for having the capacity to share this story
and to make sure that other people are in a
position to find solutions, healthy, safe solutions, and or least
feel safe to share.
Speaker 3 (55:01):
Thank you for giving me the platform and taking the time.
And I love you, sister.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
I love you too, big little sister, because I'm you. Okay,
I'll let you're trying about my weight, I'm talking about that, Okay,
I'm talking about my therapy, my therapy. I love you dearly, uh,
and take care of yourself.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
I'll talk to you soon, Okay, all right, I'll talk
to you later. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Naked Sports written and executive produced by me Carry Champion,
produced by Jockbys Thomas sound Design, and mastered by Dwayne Crawford.
Naked Sports is a part of the Black Effect podcast
network in iHeartMedia
Welcome to Naked Sports, the podcast where we live at
the intersection of sports, politics, and culture. Our purpose reveal
the common threads that bind them all. So what's happening
in women's basketball right now is what we've been trying to.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Get to for almost thirty years.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
From the stadiums where athletes break barriers and set records.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Kaitlin Clark broke the all time single game assists record.
This is crazy for rookies to be doing.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Our discussions will uncover the vital connections between these realms
and the community we create. In each episode, we'll sit
down with athletes, political analysts, and culture critics because at
the core of it all, how we see one issue
shines the light on all others. Welcome to Naked Sports.
I'm your host, Carrie Champion. Hey everybody, welcome to you
(00:58):
another edition of Naked Sports. Carrie Champion here today for
the month of May. Many of you may already know
it is Mental Health Awareness month. You've seen all the messages,
and you know there are so many people with huge
platforms who offer their own personal story and then they
also share resources. And about a week and a half ago,
(01:20):
maybe two weeks ago, a really good friend of mine,
and when I say really good, he's been my friend.
He and his wife have been my friend for the
better part of two decades. And Jason is his name.
Who you will meet. Jason asked if he could come
on the podcast and talk about mental health awareness. One yes,
no questions asked, absolutely. Two he wanted to share his story.
(01:41):
And again I told you, I have been friends with
them for almost twenty years since the beginning of my career.
I've grown up with him in a lot of ways.
And today, my really good friend, Jason Prinzo, shares a
story with me that I've never ever heard before, and
it just goes to show that you can have someone
(02:03):
in your life and consider them a really good friend
or perhaps even a family member, and not know about
their personal struggles, which to me illustrates the very very
very very important issue of taking care of your mental
health and why this month is important for everyone. Everyone
(02:23):
could look good on the outside but be struggling on
the inside, and to me, that is what I saw
when my friends shared this story. So for those of
you who are going through tough times and you think
you just put your head down and figure it out, great,
that's fine. I don't know what the stress is in
your life. I don't know what family, friend, circumstances you're
living with. But sometimes life is hard. It just is.
(02:46):
I wish it wasn't. I wish I could say no,
but I think that if we're all honest with ourselves,
there is some point in your life eventually where you
get to the point and you say, God, this is hard.
Wish I had some help, or I wish I could
talk to someone about this, And hopefully, after hearing Jason's story,
those of you who are in that space feel inspired
(03:09):
to do so. Take care of your mental health like
you take care of everything else, you have to take
care of your mental health. Welcome to this edition of
Naked Sports. Jason Prinzo, Dear, dear, dear friend of mine.
I say that about everybody, but this is true. So
I like to tell everybody. I remove all of the mystery.
(03:31):
Everything is not BTS. It's for everyone to see. We
were having a conversation this past weekend. I went to
Chicago to hang out at you and my dear friend,
one of my best friends in the world, your wife,
and yes, we all saw Beyonce, but prior to me
even coming to Chicago to see Beyonce. You've reached out
and you said, you know, I want to I know
it's Mental Health Awareness Month, which is May, and you
(03:55):
wanted to come on the podcast. And I said, to
those who were listening to the podcast, I really appreciated
you for coming on here and sharing your story. Some
people look at mental health as something they can't talk about,
and you know there's a stigma associated with it. But
you've been nothing but solution oriented and you've always wanted
to share your story and I think that is powerful.
(04:17):
So if you don't mind, my friend, let me just
say thank you for doing that.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I mean, it's such an important conversation and not one
that everybody wants to dive into. It cannot be fun sometimes,
and you know, I don't want it to be a
heavy conversation. I just want it to be, you know,
a normal talk, because we need to end this stigma
and make it okay to talk about these things.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So you told me something that I just wasn't aware of.
You are, in terms of your credentials and qualified outside
of dealing with this all of your life. Tell people
what you have been able to do in your work
towards working being an advocate for mental health.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Well, I started back in twenty eighteen as an ambassador
for NAMI. I went there as far as as part
of a pitch that a doctor was doing on Kenneming treatments,
and once I started talking about my story, they had
asked me to become an ambassador. And I don't know
that I was aware of how important this work was
until they had me talking to the Chicago Police Department.
(05:14):
And as I was telling my story and my struggles
growing up with masculinity and how that's how I've had
to deal with that as an adult, I noticed that
these guys that are kind of alphas that you know,
much like athletes that are warriors that we think about
as being strong, were waiting in line to talk to
me afterwards, and they were emotional and saying that they
(05:35):
had never heard somebody say things they.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Could relate to, and it made them feel better because
there's a shared experience.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
And it just taught me that this needs to be
dug into even more and it became a very important
mission for me because we do need to end this stigma.
And I've dealt with this since I was five years old.
I was diagnosed with depression disorder at five. I had
a very traumatic childhood because of my father. There's a
line from my father to all of my mental illness,
(06:02):
and I needed to use it as a way to
not be a weapon against me anymore. I needed to
use this as a powerful tool in order to help people,
because it's the only way that I can use this
for good. And if I tell my story first, nobody
can hold it against me, and I need to own it.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
There's always that quote that I think of that we
spend most of our adulthood trying to escape our childhood,
and escape probably shouldn't be the word. It should be
trying to understand and process and heal from our childhood,
and healing is not a linear thing. But you say,
five years old, you were diagnosed with depression? How does
that happen to a five year old? How does a
(06:40):
doctor know that? Yet? These are the signs? What are
the symptoms if someone has a child right now? And
it probably is more easy to diagnose that when your
children are to use, you know, full sentences, subject and predicate.
But yeah, five years old, I would think that would
be difficult.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Well, we had a school assignment in kindergarten that we
had to draw a family portrait. And I drew my
little portrait and turned it in the next day. When
I showed up at school, they had me go to
a counselor's office and they asked me to describe my picture,
because you know, kindergarteners were not the best drawers, or
you know, we don't color very well, but they had
an idea of what was happening here. When I explained
that my family photo was my mother and I taking
(07:21):
my father out of a bar drunk, because that was
the perception that I had in my head, that set
off alarm bells and started some conversations about what was
happening at home and how I've been feeling. And I
was immediately put into therapy. And I did therapy from
five up until about sixth grade when I pulled myself
out of it, and it was extremely helpful, but it
(07:41):
was all that I knew. But because of some other
things going on in my life, my father was very violent,
violent in the way that he was firing shots at
our house at night. He was trying to run us
off the road with his car at different times. He
was just an extremely violent person, and you know you,
we were.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Always on the run. We moved.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I went to eight schools in twelve years. I lived
in fifteen different apartments or houses as a kids, so
I was constantly the new kid. And when you're the
new kid, and then you're the one that somebody's coming
in and opening the door in the classroom and asking
you to come out, all the other kids are.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Like, ooh, what's going on? Like they think you're in trouble.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
And it's hard at nine, ten, eleven years old to
explain to people that you're going to therapy. Especially you're
talking about the early eighties, late seventies, early eighties, when
this was first happening to me, it just wasn't something
that kids did, and it made me an outlier. Now
I felt like that already because of the constant moving around,
and I just couldn't wait to get out out of
(08:40):
that space and out of that situation. I just didn't
want to deal with it anymore, and I ignored it
far too long.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Well, so you said, from five years old to sixth grade,
you pulled yourself out of it, You stop doing therapy.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I stopped doing therapy, and I had changed schools so
often that it was easy to kind of get out
of when I changed schools after sixth grade. But I
there was a point where I just didn't believe it
was helping, and I made a very bad mistake at
twenty where I thought I could mentally beat it, where
if I just had a positive attitude, I could get away,
(09:13):
I could get past all these feelings of trauma and sadness.
And I did a lot of damage to myself because
I blew a decade, a decade plus of healing by
just trying to will myself to be better. And it's
funny because it falls right in line with statistically, there
is an eleven year gap from when people realize that
(09:33):
there was some sort of disorder or something happening and
finally going to get help, which is when you talk
about adulthood. It's a large part of our adult life.
And I did that exact same thing. I was that
same exact statistic, and it took me quite a while
to admit that I needed help and to go find it.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Why do you choose to say you did yourself a disservice?
Do you think it's your fault?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I don't think that it's my fault, but I was
in therapy. So I was in therapy at twenty and
I was put on prozac kind of when prozac first
came out, and I wasn't aware of what the this
was going to do to me, what the side effects
might be. And when I had a cousin that was murdered,
and when he was murdered, I remember thinking, boy, what
(10:14):
would Keith have done if he knew he.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Was going to pass on this day?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Like how would he have looked at the last year
with traffic and put him in a bad mood?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Would he have been upset that his girlfriend had called back?
Whatever it was?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
And I thought, if I could just live like I
know the end is coming and make the best out
of everything, I can beat this.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I can be in a better mental place. And it
wasn't working.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
My struggles with masculinity was coming out in very strange
ways as an adult.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And the way that I always try to put it is,
you know, my father.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Wasn't around, and as a young man, I was trying
to learn masculinity and my mother is amazing as she was,
just couldn't teach it. So you either you do one
of two things, at least I did. You either look
at your father as an example of what a man
of masculinity is or you make it up in your
head and neither one of them are great. Right, Like,
(11:06):
I didn't realize until I became an adult that my
version of conflict resolution was the exact thing that my
father was doing, where he was fighting people.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
All the time.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
And as much as I didn't want to be him,
there was this mix of well, this is what men do,
this is what masculinity is. And it was also the
example that I had of seeing my father deal with
conflict resolution.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Okay, so when you say you struggle with your masculinity,
what does that mean? And I want to tell everyone
the reason why I am saying this. Jason. I know Jason,
and as just a loving husband, always the life of
the party, always funny, I would not have said, until
you shared this with me, that you struggle with your
mental health. I wouldn't have I wouldn't have said that
(11:49):
was an issue for you. And I know that's really commonplace.
I know people who are struggling and trying to make
everybody else happy or often the people who are dealing
with the most. And so when you say you were
struggling with your masculinity. What does that mean to you?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Well, first of all, the what you're describing is what
we call smiling depression, and that's somebody that is holding
down a job. They're very responsible, they seem like the
life of the party, but they're struggling inside. We call
that smiling depression. It's not a medical diagnosis, but that's
kind of what it's called. And it's a signal to
all of us that everybody needs to be checked up on,
not just the people that we think are struggling, but
(12:28):
to get to the masculinity part.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
I had no examples growing up.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I was raised by a woman and I was around
women all the time, so it was always extremely comfortable
with women having conversations with women.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
I mean, I think you can tell that from our
time beginning.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
I know, I try that it's serious because we will
Jason will KEI key, he'll get into it. I'm like,
but here's the thing, though, even though you do enjoy
our company and I consider you, you know, for lack
of a better term, one of the owls, there's nothing
about you that fills less masculine. When you are with us,
(13:03):
you just you feel comfortable you feel at ease, you
don't feel it doesn't feel like it takes away from
your masculinity. I'm telling you how it's perceived.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
And that's probably because I have a much higher comfortability
with women.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah right, Like I know that space and I know
how to talk to them.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
I've gotten better with men, and I have very close friends,
were extremely close friends to do it. But growing up,
because I was bouncing around all the time, I didn't
have long term friends. My friends were lasting six and
eight months, and then.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I was starting.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I was getting new ones, and you're the new kid,
and you know, as young boys, we're not that welcoming
sometimes when there's a new kid. And so I'm fighting
to try to be one of the guys without ever
having an example of what being one of the guys is.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
So I never felt.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Like I stacked up to everybody else. And when I
became an adult, I didn't know how to live in
that space without being either hyper masculine or being myself.
I couldn't find that medium ground, and I always felt
a hyper masculine and because my relationships, and this is
(14:14):
going to hit you a little bit, because I've done
this with you before. One of the things that I
do because I'm so insecure in my relationships, because the
abandonment issues I have as a child are long term.
You know, my parents married and divorce each other twice
while I was alive, and then moving around. There's just
a whole lot there. But I'm so insecure in my
(14:35):
relationships that a few things happened one.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I test people all the time because I.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Think that I need them to prove their love for me,
because it's what I've always wanted. And I don't trust
people because I think everybody's leaving, and I leave at
the first line of any disruption.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
If I to.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
This day, if I text a friend of mine, I
don't hear back from them for a few days. I'm like,
it's over, We're not friends anymore. I'm going to pull
myself out of it because me making a decision to
leave the relationship is a lot easier to handle than
if somebody else does it, and from a romantic standpoint,
it would keep me in very toxic relationships because the
idea of losing somebody that you feel loves you hurts
(15:22):
more than the pain of being in a toxic relationship.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
And the way that I.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Always explain it is you're kind of always chasing the
next I love you. You're not getting what you need
emotionally from somebody, so you're always kind of doing more
for them because you just want to hear that I
love you. And my biggest downfall is the constant need
to feel loved and accepted and seen. And I realized
(15:46):
that I put off this air that I don't need it.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I need it.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
I struggle greatly with my insecurity and relationships. Yeah, and
there have been times with you that without you knowing,
and this is really unfair on my part, but I
can't something I'm working on where I may out of
the blue mentioned something to you that I have going
on and I'm excited about it, And then I won't
talk to you for a while because I want to
wait and see if you hit me back to check
(16:10):
up on it. I'm sorry if you don't, and if no, no, no, no,
nobody's done anything wrong here.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
This is my own thing.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
And if I don't hear from somebody, it's almost a
relief because it's confirmation of what I've already believed.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
What do you mean you believe? You believe?
Speaker 3 (16:29):
I believe that the relationship has been fragile and surfaced
from the beginning, and that the friendship that I felt
wasn't real because the more that I want it than
they were giving.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
What attachment style is that you know you hear about different?
Is that it is there? What do you how would
that be diagnosed if when you describe that?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Is that all the people pleaser?
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, I'm a pleaser, which is a lot of pressure
because I feel like my value in friendships is making
other people feel good. That that's the only thing that
I bring to the table that I have to be
a person I see and so what happens and this
happens in my friendships, right like I go overboard with
my friendships of being hyper supportive, hyper diligent because I'm
(17:15):
trying to hang on to it. And it took me
a long time to realize that the people in my
life that I love aren't going to be overboard back
with me because they don't have those same issues of abandonment,
they don't have those same fears that I have, so
they don't need to do more. They're doing what everybody
else does. And I had to stop expecting that back
(17:36):
from people because their.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Insecurities aren't mine. Yeah, and they don't.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
They're not doing anything wrong by just being a very normal,
supportive friend.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
They don't have to go overboard to prove themselves to me.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Well, there are instances I will say this or I
you've been my friend for a very long time and
life gets busy. Anybody who is my friend knows sometimes
I forget important things and I and it happens all
the time. I just in my mind. I think, first off,
if you love me, you'll understand. You could charge it
to my head and not my mind. You know what
(18:09):
I mean. Doesn't mean I don't. I don't. I don't
have to. It doesn't have to be transactional for me.
We could go months without talking and I still love
your blame and I'll catch you up on all the
things of life. But when you have been what you
have been describing doesn't necessarily mean that someone has a
mental illness, but or they should check on their mental health.
(18:29):
What you describe. I sometimes think they're just the ups
and downs, just in terms of friendships, of how friendships work.
If someone's listening right now and they and they have
been struggling maybe with that area or other areas, what
are the feelings that that's especially for men. What are
the feelings that arise that that say, you know what,
(18:51):
I might need to talk to somebody, or i might
be struggling and I'm not being honest about it.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I think men us, as men, we suffer with We
suffer from a lack of self awareness.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
We are taught.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Things as young boys of big boys don't cry tough enough.
We're never taught how to deal with our emotions, how
to work through our emotions, how to have conflict resolution.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
We don't learn any of these things.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Nobody teaches us this, and so when we become adults,
we feel like showing anybody any of these things makes
us weak, so we don't talk about it at all. Right,
we don't talk about it with our friends. We hold
all of.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
That stuff in.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
And there's an unfortunate responsibility that we feel as men,
whether it's real or not, that we have to take
care of everything, that it is our job to keep
everybody safe in the house, to make sure the bills
are paid, to make sure that everybody else is good
before we can take care of ourselves.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And that's actually backwards.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
We need to take care of ourselves before we take
care of anybody else. And I think men we're just
so used to this pressure that we don't realize what
we're feeling, that we don't realize that some of these
things that are happening are having an effect on us.
And the biggest one for me is being aware of
my body. My body will tell me when there's stress
(20:11):
happening and when something's coming on quicker than when my
mind will tell me. I get stressed to my shoulders,
my shoulders tightened up, I'll get sick to my stomach.
One that's happened lately because I've been under a lot
of stress, is tingling in my arms and fingers, which
can feel like a sign.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Of a heart attack. Yeah, that's the first was really
scary at first.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Yeah, it wasn't until I went to the doctor and
we talked about it that it's a stress response. Some
people will have twitching in their eyes. These are all
indications that there is something going on psychologically that we
are stressing about or is bothering us. And that's kind
of when we need to start taking some action and
just paying attention to how we're feeling. If you're noticing
that you or somebody is spending in an order amount
(20:55):
of time in the house or in bed. That's a
huge sign that there's something going on. Pulling away from
friends another huge sign. When we're in this bad place,
we isolate. You know, there's a reason why we lay
in bed all the time because the idea of getting
up out of bed just feels monstrous. It feels like
(21:17):
the biggest thing we're going to do all day is
just get out of bed. But it works backwards because
we're in this place where we don't feel well, we
don't want to do life, and so we hole up
in bed. But doing that just makes every day feel
like it's one hundred hours long and you feel like
you're just never coming out of this space. And the
(21:38):
ridiculousness that we feel.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Is very very real to us. So when a friend.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Tells you what they're feeling and why they're feeling this way,
one of the worst things anybody can say is what
do you have to be sad.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
About or think about the bright side?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
One of the most irritating ones is, well, if you
think that's bad, this yeah, And all that is going
to do is make any of us stop talking. Because
it's hard enough to try to fight through these feelings
without having.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
To fight with you to accept what we're feeling.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Right, do you think because I could imagine someone friends
saying that I am in therapy, I've been therapized enough
to know not to say that. But for those who
don't have therapy and they don't have the words, they
think they're consoling you.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yes, is there a.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Space for you to say, I know you're trying to
console me. That's not going to help though in this moment.
Is there a space for you to understand why they
don't understand those aren't the words.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Yes, But it's hard in that moment, okay, right, because
you're already in this place where you're fighting, Right, you're
in fight or flight mode and you're fighting to get
out of this. You're fighting to get into a better headspace.
We want to be happy, and when somebody is saying
those things to you, even though we know it's going
to be helpful, there's a lot of anger that's built
(23:03):
up because we feel alone in that moment and the
people that we're leaning on don't understand well in that moment.
To your point, we do need to be able to
take a step back and say, hey, look, I know
you're trying to help. Yeah, you're making me feel more isolated.
All I need from you is to say, I'm sure
that's really hard. What can I do to help? Yeah,
(23:24):
I can't imagine what that feels like. Just make us
feel as if you understand and can be compassionate in
some way.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
We're going to take a quick break because we have
to pay some bills. We'll be right back in just
a few moments. I think having this conversation with you
is so helpful because I tend to only share with
people i'm close with. But I'll share you know. I'm
(23:56):
struggling with my relationship with my mother, and I'll say this.
I'll say, I'm going to tell you something, but I
need you to understand. I don't want you to solve
this problem. I definitely don't want you to take her side.
I want you to hear me as a person and
separate yourself from this. Just hear what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yes, and.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
My friends without fail, yourself included. Never let me down.
People who don't really know me and I share too
soon that will happen. So I know it's really important
to create a safe space to share these feelings. And
when we talk about how sad we are. Some people
(24:36):
don't want to use the depression word, but studies show
that everybody's what's the percentage of people who experience some
sort of depression throughout their lifetime? I would ressume everyone.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
It's I mean pretty much every it's like seventy or
eighty percent, will experience some sort of mental health issue
at some point in their life. I mean for athletes,
they say that thirty five percent of elite athletes struggle
with their mental health. And we've had more and more
people come out and talk about that. You know, obviously,
Smoke Biles, Kevin Love, Jake Laser's written a book about
his struggles. So it does affect pretty much everybody at
(25:10):
some point. Those of us that have clinically either have
anxiety depression. Those things are constant. And there's a little
bit of a misconception when it comes to anxiety. And
I realize now, I wasn't diagnosed with anxiety until I
was married, and I realized.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
That saying is that my friend Angie brought on anxiety.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
No, I'm saying that your friend Angie was the one
that pushed me to go to the doctor.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
And I love it. Okay, I love it because I
was going to fight you with me five seconds.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
So honeymoon because of my anxiety.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
You know, work is a major stress for me, and
I have a lot of anxiety and a huge amount
of imposter syndrome, and that's something that I work on
all the time. So when we were on our honeymoon,
we were in Vegas and Saturday Sunday great, We're gambling,
We're going to dinners, We're having fun. When Monday came
and I was normally working, my brain went to work
(26:03):
mode and we were going to the pool. We had
a command and rent it by the pool, and my
brain was lying to me saying that if I don't
work today and the company has a bad day, it's
gonna be my fault and I'm gonna get fired. If
I don't work and they have a good day, it's
going to be proof that I'm not necessary and I'm
going to be fired. So I told Angie, I'm just
(26:25):
gonna send a couple of emails and that turned into
six hours and we were at the airport and I
was having a breakdown and she grabbed me by the
hands and she said, you have anxiety and I need
you to go get help. And I said, I don't.
I have a stressful job, and if we're going to
be married, I need you to understand the stress that
I'm under and the pressure of my job. And she
grabbed tighter and she said, you have anxiety. It's not
(26:49):
just affecting you, but it's affecting me. And that crushed
me because it's the person.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I love the most. And I realized I had ruined
our honeymoon.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
So I'm not ruined the honey moan, just ask her no, no.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
But you know, the anxiety is kind of what leads
to a lot of these feelings, right, because we when
we're struggling with anxiety, especially for me, is I can
only think of worst case scenario.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, And a lot.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Of times I spent my childhood thinking that that was preparation,
that I was just preparing for the worst in case
that happened. But I realized now that what I was
thinking was that only the worst was going to happen,
that there was no other option but the worst thing.
And you spend months if you got an event coming up.
You know, if I have a big speech coming, I'm
(27:41):
stressing for an entire month about what am I going
to do when this is awful?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
What am I going to do? What is CARRY going
to say to me when I'm terrible?
Speaker 3 (27:49):
On her podcast today, Those things are constantly going through
my head and it's the simplest term. Is the former brainwashing.
We are self brainwashing. There's a thing called the illusion
to truth effect, and it's something that's used by manipulators,
cult leaders, politicians, and it's repeatedly hearing false information as truth.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
And when you hear.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Things over and over and over, you wind up believing them.
So when we're telling ourselves that these things are going
to fail, or we're not worthy of love, or we're
not worthy of friendship, you can't help but believe it right,
like it's the only thing that we're hearing.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Well, when you say you're hearing that, who's telling you
that you?
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (28:35):
And that is a form of the mental health issue
that you've been talking about, because you constantly have a
track saying that you're not worthy enough.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yes, I'm not good enough, I'm not attractive enough, I'm
not smart enough. I mean because of moving around in
school and I have some ADHD issues. I was in
learning disability classes, so I knew I wasn't dumb, but
this is, you know, the way that my life is
playing out because I was so far behind, and so
(29:05):
there's this constant feeling as kids of just not being
good enough. And it's a shame that something that can
happen to us for ten or fifteen of our initial
years can still play out thirty forty years later, even
though there's there's zero indication that any of that is
true over the last thirty years of my life.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
But I still feel it every day.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Fascinating how the brain works. I think of how our
brains aren't even fully developed when we start to have
these these ideas and these thoughts in our minds. Yeah,
because you know they say your brain doesn't fully develop
until your mid to late twenties. My thought process then,
is why do we hold on to all the negatives?
The same with social media? You remember the negative comments
(29:48):
before you remember the positive comments. There is something about
the way we need to rewire our brain. The science
behind mine. You have shared and I know when I
went to your Instagram page, your mental health Instagram page
is Jason Prinzo, mhm as and Mary h as in
Health Right Mental Health, m as in mental age as
(30:09):
in health.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
How about that I.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Heard you talk about you know some solutions we've talked about.
What are some of the things that you know can
trigger mental health issues, whether it be stress, how you
feel about yourself, how does it show itself in the body.
For you, it's been tingling, it could be your shoulders tight, stiffen.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
I had something strains start happening to me a couple
of years ago, and I'm just curious if anybody else
is dealt with.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
The same thing.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
So out of the blue, I started getting this pins
and needles feeling in my hands and especially my fingers.
So I went to the doctor to find out if
there was any problems with my heart, and it turns
out that this pins and needles feeling.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Is a stress response.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Now I wasn't surprised because I tend to run pretty
high with anxiety and stress as it is. But I
think what was surprising to me was that it was
taking itself in this form because normally I get it
in my stoma. I feel at my back and shoulders,
and that's my indication that there is some sort of
stress for something going on.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
That I need to take care of. So I'm just
curious what's an indication for you?
Speaker 3 (31:10):
What is the signal that you need to get ahead
of some sort of stress, anxiety or mental health issue.
And just remember, no matter what you're going through, you
are not alone.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Alone. For me, I hold my breath, Yes, I mean
the same thing.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
I hold my breath when I I'm just feeling intense,
and then I'm like, wait, why am I holding my breath?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
And then I and You're like, am I sick because
I'm out of breath? Am I? Am I that far
out of shape?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Exactly? Yeah, No, I'm just holding me.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
From walking up the steps. And it's no, it's just stress.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
You're just holding game spots. Can you said a couple
of things that are mechanisms in which you can cope,
which are just some natural mechanisms. Being kind lowers your
blood pressure. Can you tell us other ways where you
can there these these are natural mechanisms before we dive
into the to the drugs of it all.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yes, And I have a lot to say about therapy
as well. Yeah, but I think there are a lot
of things we can do. Socializing might be the most
important thing in order to manage our mental health. When
we're out with our friends, we're socialized and we feel
part of a group, we feel accepted, and there's bonding
moments that we have in there that just make us
feel a lot better. And you know, we don't necessarily
(32:19):
do this as much in big groups, but when we're
one on one, and you talked about this about sharing
with friends, shared experience is so helpful because it makes
you feel like you're not alone. And when you're able
to get some of those things out and somebody else
is telling you their experience as well, there's something soothing
about it that's helpful.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
So socializing is huge.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Just getting out in nature at all has amazing effects
of being calming for our brain. When I noticed that
I'm starting to get anxiety about something coming up. There
are a few things that I like to do. Breathing
exercises are always great. I like to do box breathing, when,
if you're not familiar with it, you hold your breath
for seven seconds, you breathe in for seven, blow out
(33:02):
for hold for seven, and blow out for seven. I
can't do typical deep breathing because my brain will still
wander and stress, So the box breathing with the cadence
is enough of the.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Distraction to start to lower my blood.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Pressure and bring me back to a better place because
it's all I can concentrate on. Lavender oil is great
to have around. Lavender oil has very calming and sedative effects.
I keep lavender oil with me and I'll put it
on my wrist or my hands and just breathe it
in for a while.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Physical exertion is great.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
There are a lot of times I work in a
shared office space, so I'll go into one of the
private rooms and do pushups for jumping jacks, and there's
a dopamine release with that that gets you into a
better place. That's always really great. Anything creative. As you know,
I started painting about seven years ago.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
That has been there's a little crash there that.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Has been so extremely helpful for me, especially with my anxiety.
And that's that's why you're seeing.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
A lot of more adult coloring books.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
You're seeing more of like the paint and wine things,
because when you're working on something creative. When I'm painting,
I can't think about anything but what I'm working on
in that moment, and when you're done, there's a sense
of accomplishment. At the end of the day, you get
to see your progress. I could paint for eight hours
and not stop. I have to set alarms and remind
(34:28):
me to go eat, to go spend time with my
wife because I'm so calm and relaxed in that moment
that I don't want it to stop. Those are all
incredible things that we can do. And then there's a
couple of sneaky ones. One that I love is wearing
clothes that I feel great in. Like, I think we
all have those outfits that were, like, and I look
(34:50):
great in this, right.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
We have confidence, we feel good.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
If I've had a few bad days, I'll find a
thing that makes me feel the best. I don't care
if it's overdressed or not, and that on and go
towards you feel better.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah that's so smart. I forgot about that.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
I'll do that.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I'll do that when I'm feeling away. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Okay, And I'm a huge proponent of therapy. Therapy has
been great to me. I tell people all the time
that I don't spend my time in therapy trying to
figure out why I think the way that I do.
I have an understanding of that. I spend my time
in therapy figuring out how do I live with the
(35:28):
results of this? How do I blaze new trails in
my minds that I go to better places instead of
the negative space. And the thing that I explain to people,
and this is especially for men, because we just have
a tough time wrapping our head around going to therapy
and talking to somebody is.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Most of us have worked out with trainers.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Most of us have played sports as a kid, head coaches,
maybe you've had a tutor. A therapist is nothing but
a trainer for your brain right like it is. It
is just there to help you become stronger. No different
than working out at the gym, No different than having
a tutor, a mentor whatever it is. We constantly eat
(36:12):
diets to fight off heart disease, diabetes. We work out
in order to have a long life, but we don't
do anything about our mental health until there's an issue.
We don't work on that ahead of time to stay
ahead of it. We wait until the car breaks down
to go and get an oil change. And that's something
(36:32):
that we all need to be aware of. And we
have to maintain our mental health and make plans like Look,
I have something I call my happy list and these
are all things that give me a little bit of joy.
And they could be big things like traveling, it can
be as small as going to get coffee. I love
walking to a coffee shop and hearing the sound of
the grind. All of that is great for me. And
(36:54):
I try to do one thing on my happy list
every day. It could be ten minutes. I might listen
to music for twenty minutes, but I have to work
that in every single day like it's a job, because
those are the things that keep me set mentally and
reset me mentally.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
And if I go three, four or five.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Days without doing some of these things, then my mind
starts going to a bad place.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Sure, Sure, we're going to take a quick break because
we have to pay some bills. We'll be right back
in just a few moments. You know, it's interesting for
me when I'm in a space where I'm not happy.
(37:36):
If I start cleaning my house, Yes, I feel so good.
Like I start, I'm asking people come over and like
your house is so immagulate, I'm like, no, it makes
me feel better to unpack my clothes as soon as
I travel, to do some laundry, to you know, tighten
up tight hear. It's a physical. It's all this anxious
energy that wants to be released. That's what I hear
(37:56):
you saying. And then there's also this anxious mind that
needs to be and that's why, Yes, when people say
things like, oh, I go outside and I walk. I'm
living in New York now. I walk every week in
my favorite neighborhood because it's a neighborhood. It's not loud,
it's not busy. But when I walk and I look around,
all of this feels soft to me. Everything The lens
(38:18):
is so much more softer and not as harsh, and
there is bright lighting, and there is better air, all
things that I'm just fitting naturally. And these are all
really simple techniques. We live in a world now where
a lot of people want to throw drugs at it,
and you have I And I'm just gonna be candid.
When I heard you did Academy and I was like, wait, what, Like,
(38:39):
I know Matthew the guy from the Friends died off
of and I'm like, that's dangerous. How do you How
do you balance using you know, drugs to help psychedelics
for many people to help and not become addicted when
there's something intrinsically connected with people who have been health
(39:00):
problems in addiction, like there's some kind of sure because
you want to medicate the pain, I could see why
it be so addictive, right.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
So a couple of things I've done, all different types
of medications. Some of them have been really effective, some
of them have it. One of the problems with medications
in pill form when it comes to mental health is
there's a ramp up phase, right, Like, it doesn't really
start taking effect for four to six weeks that you'll
start to feel the positive effects from it, but for
(39:29):
those four to six weeks, it can ramp up the
negative feelings. So when you're trying to find the right medication,
it can be this cycle of up and down because
you're starting something new and it ramps up all the
anxiety and depression and you're waiting for it to fix
and it doesn't, so then you've got to try a
new one and that ramps up.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Where with a lot of the psychedelics.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
The effects of it are pretty immediate. What happened with
me with ketamine was and is part of my story
of becoming an advocate. In twenty eighteen, I was laying
on the couch and I was in a really bad space,
and I was going to my Facebook page and I thought, boy,
this looks amazing. I got a great life, and you know,
people are getting to see my Sports Center highlights every
(40:09):
day and it looks like I'm just you know, having
a ball, but I'm struggling every day. So I made
a post about it, and I was shocked at how
many people responded. A lot of dms from people just
wanted to talk about stuff. And a friend of mine
who is antestesiologist, had just opened a clinic and he
was doing kenemine treatments and he said to me, he goes,
(40:29):
I didn't know that you were struggling. Why don't you
come and try ketamine? And I completely refuse. I was like, this,
this sounds silly.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
I'm scary.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
It sounds scary. Yeah, I'm not a drug user. It's
not something I'm interested in.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
But he kept asking and I kept doing the research,
and what I learned was that ketamine was originally used
during the Vietnam War when they were doing surgeries in
the field, and what they realized was that people were
coming out mentally feeling better than they were prior. And
the University of Michigann started doing studies on the effects
of ketymine. So essentially what happens in kenemine treatments. And
(41:06):
I've done it where it's an IV and you go
in and it takes about forty five minutes.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
You have a small trip like you don't.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
It's such a micro dose that it's not something that
you feel the need to become addicted to. I'm sure
there's some addictive results from people that are doing this,
but it's it's very far and few between, and the
effects can be immediate when you first do it. You
got to do it like six sessions in the first
two weeks, and then those effects, the positive effects can
(41:37):
last up to a month to six weeks.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
So you're not constantly doing these treatments.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Oh okay, but are you are you administering? Are you
going to know there's a doctor.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
I would only do it with a doctor administer.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
You can only do it with the doctor.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yeh.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
You can't run around and pop some ketamine pills. You
have to have a doctor administry. So that is the
way to at least one or two safeguards to stop
it from happening. But I'm sure it's obvious. See out
there illegally, but you're saying right you wanted to try
it under a doctor's care.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
It does correct and the gentleman from friends that passed
away from it, he had like six times the amount
in his body that you would get from a treatment.
And when you get a treatment, it only lasts in
your body for up to like it's got a fifty
percent rate for the next two days. He hadn't had
a treatment for a week and a half. That wasn't
(42:27):
in a system anymore. And I realized that the headlines
make it look like kenemine treatments are killing people, and
it's that's just not the case. He was overloaded with kenemede.
He was doing it as a recreational drum.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
What made you decide to use kenemine?
Speaker 3 (42:43):
I felt like I was running out of options. I
changed medications so many times and it had me in
such a bad place that I was desperate. And when
I did the research, I gave it a try, and honestly,
it was really helpful. I will tell you this and
I'll get a little emotional. I became suicidal for the
first time, even though I had struggled with depression and
(43:06):
anxiety my whole life. I had never thought about suicide
until I had a friend died by suicide when I
was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
And.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
I'm not lying when I tell you that the idea
of suicide crossed my mind every single day for the
next thirty years, and it wasn't something that I was planning.
I kept it as an option that if things got
bad enough, I always had this out. And in twenty twenty,
I started to normalize it. We had all the turmoil politically,
(43:35):
we had protests happening everywhere. I'm looking around and seeing
how my friends like you are being affected by some
of the things that are happening, and it's tearing at me,
and I feel like I'm arguing with family, and I
just couldn't take it anymore. And I realized that I
normalized it so much that I knew how I was
going to do it, I knew where I was going
(43:55):
to do it, and I knew I was going to
do it in a way that nobody I love would
find me. So I didn't want them to have that trauma.
And one of the hardest things that I ever did,
and one of the best things I ever did, was
I was aware enough to go to my wife and
say life is too hard for me and I'm having
(44:17):
really bad thoughts, and we didn't be in the league.
Got me some help, and that help was a ketemine treatment,
and ketymine in one treatment can help relieve those thoughts
of suicide. And it saved my life. I mean it
saved my life. And what I did from there, I
(44:38):
went checked into an outpatient facility. I did two weeks
of intensive group and one on one therapy and I
needed it. And the things that I learned there have
been life saving and life changing. A lot of the
things that I talk about as far as tools to help,
are all things that I learned over those two weeks.
And when I did it, I was very front. I
(45:00):
told all the people that I work with, anybody I
do business with, Hey, this is what's happening, and this
is what I'm doing, because I wanted to start letting
people know that this is okay. If I had cancer,
if I had diabetes, if I had anything else that
required me to get treatment in a facility, I wouldn't
be embarrassed about it. And I shouldn't be embarrassed about this,
(45:21):
and I.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Refuse to be.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
I love your friend, that's so cool. You to share
that story. Now we're all crying.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
It's okay.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
I think that it's very important to be as honest
and as vulnerable as you are. This this thing called
life isn't easy. We need more than just one month
to highlight why mental health is so important. And I
don't want to say it's popular or in vogue, but
I am always so encouraged when I see athletes to
(45:53):
your point, or celebrities or whomever, people with the platform.
And I've watched you talk about this and bits and pieces.
I watched one of your very first corporate speeches that
you gave, and I immediately thought, oh, this is his assignment,
he is, this is what he has been called to do.
(46:14):
You are creative in general, but this, this is will
be your legacy and how you will change people's lives
by sharing your story. You and then also admittedly still struggling,
still trying to figure.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Out, still struggle. Look, I'm never going to beat it, right,
It's not going to go away. I have to learn
how to manage it and live with it and not
have it affect the people around me. You know, we
talk about athletes and it's come out a lot lately.
I was really shocked at how many of my athlete friends, yeah,
would come to me one on one and pull me
(46:48):
aside and go I didn't know. Here's what I'm feeling.
I've never told anybody, and their struggles are a lot different, right,
Like I've seen friends of mine struggle during retirement because
that transition is hard. Retirement to everyday life is really difficult.
And I don't think that a lot of us, as
(47:09):
fans or general public realize these guys are still in
their thirties and most of the times they haven't made
the decision to retire. Somebody made that for them, and
something that they've been doing their entire life since they
were seven or eight years old is suddenly being taken
away at a time when they're still young and healthy.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
There's a huge identity crisis there.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
And for those people that make up the majority of
professional athletes that don't make retirement money, you're looking at
being thirty four to thirty five years old and trying
to figure out what's next because you have to work
and you've never had a job, you've never made a
resume before, and everybody else is far along and developing
(47:49):
their careers and you're figuring out what's next.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
That can be a huge blow to people mentally.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
It's also to anybody in a space where you have
to find out who you are, Like I, even you
think about that, what about when someone is transitioning into
a new career such as yourself, or trying to redevelop
the career that well, such as myself, or that I
was going.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
To bring that up, or even you left a big
you know, a big company, yeah, brand, Yeah, and you
did it on your own terms.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
And and look, I've told you.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
When you first told me you were going to do it,
I was so proud of you, and you've done amazing
since then. But I imagine there had to be a.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
A It's just identity is attached to what you do.
And that happened to me when I first I was
a local news reporter, and I and then I wasn't
a local news reporter. I was just trying to figure
out when can I get my next local job? And
I didn't, but I was always I would lead with
I'm a reporter, and so much of our work is
attached to what we do, and so I see it.
(48:51):
I see it in everybody's world. I see it when
a mother's children leave and she's an empty nester. Or
when a woman decided to leave her husband and she's
happy that she did it, but she has to find
a whole new life, or vice versa, when a man
leaves his family or his wife, whomever. When you legal
relationship and you've been so intricately connected to this being,
(49:12):
this person, this entity, it happens none of us, none
of us are excluded from that. So and so that's
when for me, I think therapy is important to express
how you feel. Not it's easy and it can happen.
I even think of people when they are quote unquote
at the highlight of their career and they're showing their
(49:33):
sports and her clips of what they're doing, and how
they are still very very much struggling, struggling with who
likes me, who really wants to be my friend, who's
using me? How do I adjust to this new world
where I don't know who to trust? And that's why
it's so to me very important to one keep a community.
(49:54):
When you start talking about your friends and who you
can share with, I think that's to me, that's the
only thing that saves us in any of these circumstances.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Totally.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
And look, there are a couple of things that I
want to talk about that you just pointed out. You know,
one as parents, when you talk about, you know, raising children.
A mistake that I think a lot of parents make
is they try to fix themselves to their children. And
that's what my mother did with me, where she was
trying to prepare me to not make the same mistakes
(50:23):
she did because they were a problem for her, but
they weren't a problem for me. Right, So, at seven,
eight nine years old, my mother was trying to teach
me how to be an adult. Where I knew when
bills weren't getting paid, I knew when we might get evicted,
I knew when loans didn't go through, and she was
trying to teach me responsibility and to how to understand
how to be an adult. But at that young age,
(50:44):
all it did was cause me to have more fear
of what was happening. I had already had fear of
what my father was going to be doing physically to us.
Now I have this fear that I have to deal
with and I have to think about these things with
my mother, and you know that she was just trying
to fix herself, right, because she didn't have those tools
(51:05):
when she had.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
First gotten married. She went to make sure that I
had them.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
But you know it, she had the best intentions, it
just caused a lot of anxiety. And that's that's difficult,
right for women. You guys have so much pressure, and
it's different than what men feel. You know, you're told
her you can't have it all right, that if you work,
you're just a working woman and that's all you are,
(51:29):
anty all of these other things if you're having a
bad day. And I even hate using the word emotional
because when you attach emotional to women, it has a
different meaning than when you attach it for men. And
you know, if you're upset, we oh, it's just they're
just being emotional, or you know, like, oh, you can't
(51:50):
say anything, And as guys, we do the exact opposite.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
We don't say anything.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
And it's really unfair. And I've noticed a lot lately
when I speak out about men's mental health, because that's
the one that I can relate to the most, I
get a lot of women coming back saying, well, what
about this and what about this? And it goes into
what I was saying about politics to you the other day.
Mental health is in the team sport. Nope, right, Like,
both things can be true, and nobody is saying that
(52:17):
all men are making women feel this way and all
women are making men feel this way.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
What we need to do is be able.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
To have a conversation and say, here are the things
that I'm feeling. And even though I may feel as
a man that it's my responsibility to take care of everything,
I'm not saying that it is.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
I'm saying that's the pressure that I feel.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Right Like, my wife and I have taken turns being breadwinners,
and my wife has out earned me a lot of times.
By far, it has never been an issue to me.
But even in those times, I felt like it was
my responsibility to make sure that all the bills were paid,
that I had everything handled. Even though my wife is
(52:57):
very supportive can handle a lot of those things. It's
just the pressure that I feel, and I'm sure she
feels pressure of what is a great wife. I know
she felt a lot of pressure of that she wasn't
the right kind of mother, that she wasn't the arts
and crafts mother. She was a working nurse, so she
felt like she was failing there. And that's really unfair.
So there's all these societal pressures and gender pass that
(53:18):
we have and.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
It's not a team sport. We can come together and talk.
Speaker 3 (53:22):
About these things and what our differences are and help
each other and it's not me against you. It's not
men against women. So when you hear certain genders talking
about their struggles, it's not saying that they have it
worse or we have it worse.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
We're all in this together and we're all just trying
to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
I love it. You posted something on your mental health
page that said, you know, it was about normal and
I'll end with this like normal is subjective. There is
no normal anything what you normally do, there's no And
I think the more that we have these conversations and
we're more honest about where we are in our normal
space of life, yes, then people will start to understand. Yeah,
(54:06):
I appreciate you so much. What other resources would you
like to provide you have? Jason Prinzo MH can follow
you on Instagram? Where else can people find you? Can
follow me on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
My website is Jasonprinzo dot com and on there if
you're searching for help, I have a page that has
a list of different resources in order to find therapists,
in order to find it affordable therapists, in order to
find help for substance abuse, for any sort of physical abuse.
That's all on there if you go to my page,
because it's there are a lot of resources, but a
(54:37):
lot of us don't know where to go to get them,
and so I've got them all listed on my page.
And I would encourage anybody if you're struggling and you
need help, there are ways to find it. You can
go directly to my page and find any sort of
resources you need.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
Thank you for having the capacity to share this story
and to make sure that other people are in a
position to find solutions, healthy, safe solutions, and or least
feel safe to share.
Speaker 3 (55:01):
Thank you for giving me the platform and taking the time.
And I love you, sister.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
I love you too, big little sister, because I'm you. Okay,
I'll let you're trying about my weight, I'm talking about that, Okay,
I'm talking about my therapy, my therapy. I love you dearly, uh,
and take care of yourself.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
I'll talk to you soon, Okay, all right, I'll talk
to you later. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Naked Sports written and executive produced by me Carry Champion,
produced by Jockbys Thomas sound Design, and mastered by Dwayne Crawford.
Naked Sports is a part of the Black Effect podcast
network in iHeartMedia
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